The Forgotten Ones
by ncfan
Summary: There is no such thing as benign neglect. And Naruto, Lee, Tenten and Gaara all prove it.


Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

There is no such thing as _benign_ neglect.

* * *

Naruto shivers in the cold, pulling his threadbare blanket closer to him. The temperature dropped another ten degrees last night, the coldest Naruto can ever remembering experiencing.

The window won't close all the way; it never does. Some of the shockingly icy rain pools on the wood floor; it mildews, leaving a sickening sweet stench rising up in the heat of summer.

He pulls himself as close to the wall as he can, wishing the apartment was a little warmer, that the central heating actually worked (in the summer, he wishes that the air conditioning worked), that he had thicker blankets and that his toes weren't so blue.

He is four years old, much smaller than most children of his age. He is quite thin, and the lack of any great amount of spare flesh on his bones makes him more susceptible to the cold than most toddlers.

Naruto's also hungry. It's too cold for him to go out to Ichiraku's for ramen, and he's grown so sluggish that even if he had properly warm clothing, not just t-shirts and shorts, he wouldn't be able to go.

His blue eyes weep salty tears that he can barely feel, as he dreams of happier days. Sometimes, he dreams of his mother, and what she was like. He never thinks about his father, never thinks about where he is and why he isn't _there_ with his son. Sometimes, when he closes his eyes and dreams, he dreams of his mother playing with him and taking care of him. He can't be sure, but maybe his mother looked like him.

Naruto slips out of bed and crawls in a way so as not to dislodge his blanket towards the space heater at the other end of the wide room, the only source of heat in the apartment, and shivers, holding his hands as close to the heater as he can without being burned.

He hopes it will get warmer soon.

* * *

Lee and Tenten nod as they sneak away from the foster home to go play on the training ground's playground.

It's called a foster home to maintain a veneer of respectability, but in reality it's an orphanage, a four-story overcrowded hovel with dull white-washed stone walls and a cast-iron stairwell on the outside that indicates it was once an apartment building.

"Come on, Lee," Tenten urges her comrade, who stands a tier above her, thick eyebrows drawn up in uncertainty. "No one's gonna care if we aren't there for supper."

It's true. In the years since the Kyuubi's devastating assault on Konoha, the orphanages have grown overflowing, and the one they live at is the worst. There are usually at least four children to one room (and the fact that Lee is one of Tenten's roommates is probably the only thing that has kept her from running away; she can't stand the two girls they share a room with), the food is substandard, and the clothing they were are worn cast-offs from the older children and donations from well-to-do families. Tenten _hates_ pink, but both of her other shirts are in the wash.(1)

Their small arms are bony and bruised, as result of fist fights in the orphanage courtyard that no one in management will see to; both Lee and Tenten have the look of children who are hungry quite often.

Lee can not clearly remember a time before the orphanage. He remembers his mother, faintly, exuberant and boisterous, with sharp brown eyes that could see the truth in any lies. They were poor, but they were happy.

Tenten, on the other hand, can, and instead of going from good to bad, she simply went from bad to worse. Tenten can not remember her mother, though she remembers her father and wishes she couldn't. When she and her sister came to the orphanage, her sister soon ran away and Tenten was left alone with Lee. They have no visitors, few friends, and no real caretakers.

A soft red glow glitters in the air as they run towards the playground. Those who notice them alone in the streets soon lose interest; in the part of town they live in, there are more homeless children then there are children _with_ homes, and no one's going to notice two more little urchins.

For though they live in a building with many children and many adults, there is no one they can truly rely on. They are alone.

* * *

The sands hit Gaara's face like probing accusing fingers, blasting his pale, sensitive skin. No blood is drawn; it will never leave any mark, bloody or bruised.

He is alone, as always. No one particularly likes to be alone with him, not even Yashamaru, and Gaara's gentle eyes begin to tear at that thought, that even Uncle is a little afraid of him.

Gaara goes out into the desert to hide from the accusing, hateful, terrified eyes of the village. He wishes someone would stop him, that someone cared enough to keep him from potentially risking life and limb by venturing out into the desert, though no harm has ever befallen him; Mother's sand protects him, his skin never burns despite the uniform intensity of the sun, and he never feels the effects of dehydration.(2)

He falls on his back and burrows halfway into the sand. It slips and slides into his clothing, against his skin, embedding itself in his hair and scalp, warm and nurturing like the mother's arms he will never feel.

The wind howls, blowing sand like eddies of water in a rushing river, the current twisting and turning constantly like a living thing. Gaara stares in fascination as the granules twinkle like gold stars in a night sky that is amber-tinged aquamarine, instead of smooth violet-indigo.

No one will come looking for him; no one ever has. Gaara is never harmed on his long ventures (the injuries are there, but never on his body; no one takes the time to notice or care where the _real _wounds lie) out into the wilderness, and even if it is days before he returns, everyone knows he will, because Gaara is bound at the hip to Suna. It is something that resembles a parasitic relationship, and though Gaara is left drained by it, he doesn't have the eyes to see the harm being inflicted upon him.

The dark, guttural voice starts to whisper in his mind again. The voice tells him that he's worthless, that it is the only one that will ever love him. It demands that Gaara addresses it as Mother and that he listens to it, and though Gaara only complies out of fear, his will to resist secretly wanes with each time the voice surfaces and roars in the recesses of Gaara's child mind.

He wishes that someone would come and make the voice go away, but…

No one does.

* * *

1: I know Tenten wears pink in Part I, but she doesn't strike me as the sort of girl who would really like pink. I think the reason she wears that shirt is out of the hope that she will wear it out sooner or that she will get blood or something else that won't come out onto it. When I was little I used to put runs in my tights on purpose, so I can see where she might come from with that.

2: I can't help but think that with Shukaku being a desert demon, it would alter its hosts bodies to make them ideal for desert life, so they wouldn't be killed in Shukaku's element so easily. The fact that Gaara seems to have never been sunburned or even tanned in his life while both of his sibling are at least slightly tan reinforces this in my mind.


End file.
